[160m] Beacon List?

[Tom W8JI]

> Hi Dave! I am in extreem west central Wisconsin. Almost in 
> the center of the
> lower 48. If it's a fishing buoy, it must be on the great 
> lakes or it's got
> a great antenna :>).

HEI is the callsign of a navaid beacon on 392 kHz. The fifth 
harmonic is on 1960 kHz, so the sidebands of the AM 
transmitter would easily be heard as a "CW" tone on about 
1963 KHz (and at other 1kHz intervals). If you tune 
carefully to 1960kHz on CW mode, you might detect an 
opposite image of the transmitter. It would be the NEGATIVE 
or image of the CW you are hearing.

http://www.airnav.com/navaids/ and type in HEI

The fundamental is only 25 watts. This shows how badly these 
transmitters are designed and maintained, when a 5th 
harmonic causes a problem. The FAA and the manufacturers of 
these beacons generally have no clue on how to adjust them. 
They think a scope actually is adequate to detect or avoid 
harmonics.

Of course down here in the southeast we mostly hear fishing 
beacons, but they generally are numbers and letters mixed 
and have a different pattern. Airnav NDB beacons send the 
callsign over and over while fish beacons generally send the 
callsign in groups of three with a carrier following, then a 
fairly long silent period before repeating. I have no doubt 
you could hear a fish beacon in a quiet location up north 
because I can hear fishing beacons that are off the coast of 
New England and that's 1000 miles from me.

The longest distance I've heard a NDB harmonic is about 2000 
miles, and the longest distance I've heard a fishing drift 
buoy is several thousand miles.

73 Tom